St Anne’s Synagogue was delighted to host guest Yoni Finlay and family to our Shabbat service and kiddush.
Yoni Finlay was one of the brave volunteers who survived a bullet during the terrorist attack on the Heaton Park Shul on Yom Kippur last year.
In his own words, this is his story ….
I’ve told the following story a few times. On the 17 th of September 2025 I was driving
through Hale Village with a colleague, and I spotted someone walking past a
restaurant, and I said to my colleague, my friend who was driving, that guy looks just
like Alex Ferguson, my goodness it is Alex Ferguson! He slams on the brakes, I jump
out and run across the road. He very kindly agrees to have his photo taken with me,
I thank him and get back in the car, and we carry on.
I say this story to me, it kind of illustrates how quickly life can change. Because after
what happened just over 2 weeks later, my picture was shown in various media
outlets and on TV, and I do still find it quite funny that they used that picture, I’m still
not sure how they got it, but they actually cropped Sir Alex out of it, which I’m sure
has never happened before!
How do you respond to being on the receiving end of a miracle? How do you live
your life moving forward after seeing it saved? How should we respond to what
happened to us as a Jewish people?
Because on the 2 nd of October, Yom Kippur 5786, just over 2 weeks after that chance
meeting in Hale Village, my life changed completely.
40 people were in my Shul, Heaton Park. at the same time as a terrorist, who was
prepared to give up his life because he hated Jews, and was determined to do as
much damage as he could.
So I I arrived in Shul around 9 o’clock that morning, I’ve been up since around 6,
quite nervous. I was due to be leading the morning prayers, the Shacharit service,
and as I hadnt done it since Covid, and never for the main service, I’m going over the
prayers, and the tunes, trying to remember them, going through my notes.
I get to Shul, I do my usual fist-bump with Benard, Benard was our paid security
guard, I’ve since met him at his house and spoken with him on the phone a few
times, he still got a long way to go, but he is one of the bravest and most
inspirational men I know. His words were to me were “I feel G-d put me in that place
to look after the shul and its congregants and I wasn’t going to let anything happen to
them if I could help it”.
I say hello to the other volunteers and the other security on the gate, and go inside. 3
more volunteers were inside the foyer, welcoming people in, which would shortly
become a scene of horror, welcoming us in.
I go into the Shul, and as I am leading the Shacharit prayers, I take my seat on the
bimah, on the platform in the middle of the Shul. I’m saying the early part of the
prayers, and getting myself prepared. Me and the Rabbi had a joke, he was going to
be leining, and wasn’t sure he was ready, and as I said, I was also quite
nervous. Also he wasnt happy with his sermons, he didn’t know what he would be
saying.
Turned out it didnt matter. Neither of us were going to be doing that day what we
thought we would be.
Around 9.30am we heard a loud bang, that we didn’t know, was a car driving into the
wall outside the shul, by someone trying to crash his way into the shul grounds,
running down Benard in the process.
Alan Levy, who is our Chair of Trustees, then comes running in, shouting to get the
back doors of the Shul closed. This animal is making his way around to the back of
the Shul to try and find a way in.
Adrian Daulby, HYD, who was tragically killed, he was closest to the
door on his side, and, in the words of Rabbi Walker, leapt up and got it closed,
absolutely saving lives, and the other door was also closed.
We then made our way into the foyer, to see what was going on, and to see if we
could help.
The first thing I saw when I got in the foyer, was through the window in the door, I
could see Benard lying on the ground, in his bright yellow jacket. Then, in the foyer, I
looked across and I’ve never seen so much blood, Andrew, who had been stabbed,
was sitting on a chair, having miraculously been able to get back inside. There were
already people holding the doors, and I could see a very large, very angry person?
running at the doors, doing his level best to get in, and let me tell you something,
those doors were buckling. He also had on what looked like a bomb, although
we didn’t know it wasn’t viable.
I always say this, because I find it amazing: I spoke to a few people after, around 10
or so days later, and the weird thing was, at that moment it was about keeping him
out, making sure he didn’t get in, and we kind of all forgot about that he may have
had a bomb.
So we were holding the doors, we knew the police had been called, but where
were they? I remember saying where are they, where are the police? We
were moving from door to door, there are 3 doors that open, following him as he
kept trying different ones, he went down the steps and was using plant pots and his
knife, that knife, I’ve never seen such a large blade, he was trying to break the
window of the door. It felt like an age till we could see the police arriving. But they did
arrive, and it was quickly. Apparently in Bondi, it took them 15 minutes to get there.
15 minutes of holding on, its frightening to think.
When the police got into the grounds, and they actually couldn’t get in for a
moment as they obviously didn’t read Hebrew alphabet, the code was written on
gate, although it has now been taken down, they ran towards the steps as he ran
down them. They were shouting at him – “armed police, armed police” – but he
kept running at them. Presumably, because of the bomb, they had to stop him, they
had to stop what they believed was a bomb blowing up my shul, my
community, my friends and they shot him. He went down, but got back up again,
and that’s when it happened, as they shot him again, I felt one of the bullets go into
me.
Being shot was a very strange, surreal experience. I mean I don’t recommend it but
for me, it didn’t hurt, but I knew straightway that I had been shot. To be honest, I was
annoyed, I knew that whatever I had been meaning to do that day, was not going
to happen. And maybe if I’d been standing further back, or to the side, maybe I would
have been alright. But, as a good friend said to me after, you were meant to be
standing exactly where you were. We say in the morning prayers the
words Hameichin Mitzadei Gaver, blessed is the One Who prepares the steps of
man. I wasnt meant to be anywhere else.
And in hospital one of the nurses said to me, the bullet was that close to the
heart, so..
But also, as I gradually lowered myself to the floor, and I have witnesses who will
back me up on this! I went down gracefully! I didn’t collapse!, I remember
thinking, I don’t want to die here, I want to live to an old age, my life cant be over
now.
I was struggling to breath, my left lung had collapsed, even now when I read things
maybe in the paper, about people being shot, just this weekend, I remember reading
someone had died because he was shot and the bullet had punctured his lung, I
know how lucky I am.
So I’m lying on the floor and Marc, one of the brave men also on the doors, lay down
next to me, just talking to me, someone else, Marvin, passed him some water and he
was giving me sips. My father, who was in shul that morning, as was my mother, had
gone back inside the shul and someone went to get him, and I’ll never forget his
face, a son, a child, should never see their parent like that.
So I’m lying there, waiting for I don’t know what. I don’t know at this moment that
Melvin is lying outside the shul gates, having been stabbed. That Adrian is behind
me, having been killed by the very same bullet that has gone into me. The police had
come in, made sure the building was safe, smashed office windows, smashed the
door of the bungalow at the back of the Shul grounds, poor Alan had come out with
the keys, and they weren’t interested, the fire brigade came in, its possible they were
the first to give first aid, and then the paramedics got to me. They moved me onto
what I can only describe as a very large tarpaulin, some sort of board, and then
dragged me through the shul, and out through the back doors, and then down the
side of the shul grounds, and out through the gates on the other side. Presumably
I couldn’t be taken out the front door, they didn’t yet know if the bomb was safe.
I am terrified of operations, not as terrified as I was, but still, on my way to
hospital, lying there in the ambulance, oxygen mask on, still struggling to breath,
being asked for next of kin details, and telling the paramedics, these are the mobile
numbers, this is the home number, but you’ll never get hold of them, its Yom Kippur,
they don’t answer their phones, they wont even have them! And I’m convincing
myself, I’ll be fine, they’ll check me over, you’re fine, we can send you home, I’ll be
back to normal.
I assume I’ll be taken to the hospital 5 mins from the shul, CrumpsaIl, but they take
you where you’ll get the best treatment for what you need, so we shoot off (sorry!) to
Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI). Apparently, gunshot protocol is to be taken to
hospital by police escort, but they’d just gone off, which was fine with me, although
the journey itself was, I cant tell you, fast, taking corners like it was F1, like
they were on a police chase. And because the hospital was expecting police with
me, so initially it was like –who’s this other person with a gunshot wound? It was also
the reason why my parents didn’t find out where I was until 2.45 in the afternoon,
until quarter to 3. Initially they had been taken to the hall at the back of the Shul, as
the police wanted to check everyone was who they said they were, and they were
still searching the grounds. They were then taken to the police college in Prestwich,
along with the everyone else in Shul, and every police officer they saw – “where’s
Yoni? Do you know if he’s ok? Do you know where he is?” And no one did.
So I’m taken in, into the emergency department, incidentally I’ve since met the
first doctor who looked after me, when I went back in a few weeks after when I had
some pain, and I also had the privilege of meeting some of the doctors and nurses
who gave me such great care when I returned over Christmas on behalf of A Time to
Say Thank You, set up of course by an old school friend of mine, from Leeds, Rabbi
Alby Chait.
So I’m taken for a CT scan, come back to the ER, told I am going to need surgery,
as if it was ever in doubt! At that point two police officers come to the bed, I had no
recollection of this until the police reminded me almost a month later, when they
were prepping me for the video statement I needed to give about what had
happened. I give a brief statement to these two police officers, and then get taken to
the operating theatre, amazingly quite calm at this point.
Surgery takes either four hours or seven hours depending on who you ask, I did ask
one of the surgeons, who actually didn’t know. This surgeon was actually not meant
to be working on the day but I found out that he had come into the hospital specially
that day, once he knew what had happened, really to see if he could help. Although
he couldn’t get in initially due to the hospital being on lockdown, the fact that he had
no other surgeries planned for that day meant he could look after me. And he was
a great surgeon, as well as being Jewish as well.
So they repaired my lung, diaphragm, kidney and bowel. I was in the hospital for
10 days, under police ‘guard’ – I remember being taken in a wheelchair to the
Shabbos room on the 1 st days of the Sukkot Chag, and you get some very strange
looks!
On that morning we came face-to-face with evil. How do we respond to what
happened? What should our answer be? How do we move forward in the face of
what he heard at the Preston trial, with those people given sentences of 37, 26 and
6 years, again because they hated Jews so much they were prepared to give up
their lives? How do we deal with the charges on these alleged Iranian spies, who
wanted to inflict more harm on us?
A survey came out last week about universities. One in five university students in the
UK would be reluctant or unwilling to share housing with a Jewish student. Of 1000
students across 170 universities, 23% had witnessed behaviour targeting Jewish
students for their religion or ethnicity. Nearly half had heard chants glorifying Hamas
or Hezbollah, or justifying October 7.
The first, and possibly most important thing, is to know that we are not alone. We are
still being looked after. Hashem is still with us, even amidst the horror. Because even
while we were under attack, there were still miracles:
The fact that I am here, that I survived, is a nes, no question a miracle. I
survived being shot, I survived all the damage that was caused by that bullet,
6 weeks later I was running again (incidentally I am hoping to run a half
marathon in May for charity)
The fact that he came when he did – 9.30 in the morning of Yom Kippur. 2
hours later, Yizkor time, there would have been hundreds of people in shul.
The night before, hundreds in Shul for Kol Nidrei.
He could have gone back out on to Middleton Road at any time and he
didn’t.
20 minutes before there were children running around outside. By the time he
was in the grounds, they were inside the shul.
And the fact that Rabbi Walker wasn’t injured or hurt – I believe without what
he has done over the last 5-6 months, we would not be where we are now as
a community.
And that last point, is I think, the most crucial. The strongest response to something
like this, is that we don’t let them win, we carry on. Rabbi Walker’s decision on the
day, and therefore the response of our shul and community, was, even while
we didn’t know if there were more or if we were completely safe, that we carry on.
We don’t let them win. On that very day, Yom Kippur itself, not a single tefiloh, not a
single prayer was missed. Shacharis and Mussaf were davened in the
streets, Mincha at Sedgley Park Police Station, the police college in Prestwich, and
Neilah in Maccabi. For me, Neilah is always so powerful, the culmination of a day of
fasting and praying, and a final chance on that day to ask G-d for a good year. And
I didn’t have that this year, in fact I didn’t do any praying on Yom Kippur, but I like to
think, in some way that that Neilah was even more powerful, because we still said
it.
In the days following Yom Kippur, the Nicky Alliance, the building across the road
from the shul, opened its doors to us, and by Shemini Atezeres we were back in our
shul, with us dancing in the main shul on Simchas Torah, the night I came back.
And not to just to carry on. But to carry on in the right way. To put light back into the
world, to combat that darkness we saw on that day.
On the first Friday night after the Chagim, over 1100 people joined us in Heaton
Park.
Streimels, kippot srugot, mizrachi, Ashkenazi, religious, non-religious, all singing and
dancing as one.
Because we are one.
The feedback from the police, how well they were looked after and welcomed
and thanked,and given food. The Facebook posts from officers that had
never experienced such kindness and gratitude and appreciation.
Because that’s how we are. As Jews, we don’t respond with violence and hatred and
anger. We respond with light and goodness and we chase away the darkness, but
even in the darkness we have light.
I’ve given a lot of media interviews since Yom Kippur, I’ve spoken to BBC, ITV, LBC,
Sunday Times, the Guardian, others. Initially I didn’t want to do any, I wasn’t
going to, but the reason I agreed to is because, one, I think it’s really important to
keep the spotlight on antisemitism and to keep talking about it, but also because I
believe it’s really important that we show how we, as a Jewish community, react
when darkness and horror visit us. And fortunately, I have heard positive feedback
and some really nice things from people, Jewish and not Jewish, who have seen or
read these interviews.
In just over a week it will be Pesach. Pesach has more miracles than any other part
of the Torah, the Bible. You’ve got the burning bush, the rods turning into serpents,
the ten plagues of course, the crossing of the Red Sea, the pillars of smoke and
fire protecting the Jews in the desert, the manna from heaven, and of course, the
giving of the law on Mount Sinai.
Yet I’m sure for many of us here today, I’m sure you have more than ancient Egypt
on your mind. I’m sure modern-day UK is something you think about a lot more.
But like Pharoh of old, we can learn that same lesson, that Hashem will protect us
and look after us.
In the Passover story, the Jews had been suffering in Egypt for 210 years. So what
finally prompted G-d to appoint Moses and begin the process of redemption? What
was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back?
The answer was symbolically given to Moses in his first encounter with G-d at the
Burning Bush.
A simple reading of the story tells us that while looking after his sheep in the desert
of Sinai, Moses suddenly saw a bush that was engulfed in flames. Yet strangely
enough, although the bush was burning, it was not consumed. That defies the laws
of nature. Fire always destroys. Moses could not understand what was going on.
At this very moment, as Moses stood transfixed by the miracle before his eyes, G-d
revealed himself and proclaimed, "I am the G-d of your fathers."
At a very basic level, this story seems to tell us that G-d performed this wondrous act
to impress Moses before asking him to assume the mantle of leadership. God chose
this sign so that Moses would grasp the meaning of Divine power.
But why this miracle? Couldn't God have performed another miracle even more
striking, more convincing, something that showcased His control over the entire
world, rather than just a single bush in the desert?
Say the Rabbis, a beautiful answer, and one that remains with us until today.
God wasn't simply performing a miracle, He was sending a message. God knew
what was uppermost in the mind of Moses. From the time he fled from Egypt and
watched his brothers suffering under Pharaoh’s brutal oppression, Moses worried
and wondered: Are my people still alive? How are they doing? Are they
ok? And so the very first thing God did was to reassure Moshe, but not only for that
time but for the future as well.
The bush burned but was not consumed. So too, the Jewish people
will never disappear.
The bush was a symbol of the Jewish people. The bush was burning but, against all
laws of nature, it was not consumed. So too, the Jewish people, against all laws of
history, will never be lost. That was the Divine promise given in the first message that
God gave to Moses, at the very moment he took on the leadership of the Jewish
people.
Jewish history defies explanation. It is said that when King Louis XIV asked his
resident philosopher, Pascal, whether he believed in miracles, Pascal replied that he
did.
Surprised, the King then asked, "Give me an illustration of a miracle that justifies
your belief."
"The Jews, your Majesty. The survival of the Jews – that is certainly a miracle."
Somehow, in spite of all the attempts at destroying us, we Jews
have demonstrated the ongoing miracle of the Burning Bush. The Divine promise
made long ago to our forefathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that
assured them that their descendants would never perish, that our role in history is to
be "a light unto the nations", that would remain forever.
And this is why God chose this particular moment for Moshe to begin the miracle of
the national redemption from Egypt. When Pharaoh’s plans turned from oppression
to extermination and there was the potential for the Jewish people to be
destroyed, Hashem had to step in: our rescue became inevitable.
Just under a month ago, we had the festival of Purim, and the same thing happened
then. As soon as Haman made his decision to murder all the Jews, men women and
children, the Purim miracle became a foregone conclusion, and Haman was doomed
to hang on the gallows. The disappearance of the Jews from the world’s stage had to
be prevented, no matter how unlikely the many “coincidences” required to bring this
about.
What does the word Pesach actually mean? Passover, as in Hashem ‘passed over’
the homes of the Jewish people in Egypt, when he killed the Egyptian firstborn.
Rashi gives this as one of his interpretations of the word. Hashem skipped over, so
to speak, of the houses of the Jews.
Rashi also explains Pesach according to how Onkleos translates it, that it means
love. In other words, there were two things happening here – outwardly there was a
passing over or a skipping of the houses of the Jews, and, at the same time Hashem
was expressing His love for His people.
Says Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine (British Mandate
Palestine), on that final night they spent in Egypt, when they sat in their homes
unable to go out, Hashem passed over their homes, and in that passing over,
they felt surrounded by His love. They felt the warm embrace of the Shechina, the
Divine Presence.
This is the meaning of the festival of Pesach and one we wish to infuse within our
souls at the Seder. We are not alone, G-d is right here at our side.
The Exodus was unique because of an act of faith by our ancestors. Three million
people entered a desolate and barren desert, where there was neither food nor
water for so many people, but a people clinging only to the belief that G-d would
provide for them.
Pesach is a time of renewal, of Spring, of hope. And at Heaton Park we saw that
hope. Early in the Haggadah a new name of God is introduced: ‘HaMakom’, which
translates as ‘place’ (‘Baruch Hamakom Baruch Hu’). Why the change of name?
The Rabbis explain it to mean “God is the place of the world and the world is not His
place.” What does this mean? That space is contained within God, rather than God
being limited to a specific place. And what this tells us, is that no place and no
circumstance is free from the Divine Presence. God is not found in any particular
location, rather, G-d exists in all places.
Yes, Yom Kippur was tragic, and yes we lost holy people, but G-d was still with us.
The night of the Seder is called Leil Shimurim, the Night of Watching. On that day in
Yom Kippur Hashem was still watching over us, and we still saw His Hand on that
day. And we continue, and will continue, to see that.